The Delhi High Court on January 19 dismissed a plea filed by expelled BJP leader Kuldeep Singh Sengar seeking suspension of his 10-year sentence in the custodial death case of the Unnao rape survivor’s father.
Rejecting the application, Justice Ravinder Dudeja said no grounds had been made out for granting the relief. “The application seeking suspension of sentence is dismissed,” the court said.
While acknowledging that Sengar has already spent a considerable period in jail, the court held that delay alone could not be a basis for suspending the sentence. It noted that the delay in hearing the appeal was partly due to multiple applications moved by Sengar himself in his pending appeal against conviction. The judge said the ends of justice would be met by hearing the appeal at the earliest and listed the matter for February 3.
On March 13, 2020, a trial court had sentenced Sengar to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 10 lakh in the case linked to the custodial death of the survivor’s father. The court had observed that “no leniency” could be shown in the killing of a family’s “sole breadwinner”.
The trial court had also awarded 10-year jail terms to Sengar’s brother, Atul Singh Sengar, and five others for their involvement in the custodial death.
The survivor’s father was arrested under the Arms Act on Sengar’s alleged directions and died in custody on April 9, 2018, reportedly due to police brutality. Sengar had earlier kidnapped and raped the minor survivor in 2017.
Although the trial court did not convict the accused for murder, it awarded the maximum punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Section 304 of the Indian Penal Code, holding that there was no intention to kill.
Sengar’s appeals in both the rape case—stemming from a December 2019 judgment sentencing him to imprisonment for the remainder of his natural life—and the custodial death case are pending before the high court. While the high court had suspended his sentence in the rape case on December 23, 2025, the Supreme Court stayed that order on December 29, 2025.